[US/World-Politics] "Predatory Manufacturing and (Non-)Immigration" Are On Borrowed Time
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[US/World-Politics] "Predatory Manufacturing and (Non-)Immigration" Are On Borrowed Time
I'm not sure whether either of these terms have entered the public discourse yet, but here's what I mean by each of them:
Predatory Manufacturing: That product isn't normally made by that country, and it's not made there to be sold to its own citizens. That plant exists only to make products to be imported (into the US) in order to bypass (American) laws concerning environment, labor practices and so forth. It would not exist there at all if there were tariffs applied to its imports, which right now are not so restricted.
Predatory (Non-)Immigration: That person has been "imported" from somewhere else, only to reduce labor costs. That person might be faced with un-acknowledged conditions of slavery, peonage, or involuntary servitude and may have no possibility of ever becoming a citizen of the country. He is called "the best and the brightest" by industrialists who brazenly insist that no similarly-bright person exists anywhere in (the United States) ... a fabrication that sounds eerily like any other defense of: "the peculiar institution.™"
You need to read the handwriting that is plainly now written on the wall – not only in the United States, but elsewhere in the world. (Furthermore, you need to see that the host/supplying countries are beginning to say the same things, too. They realize that they – and their people – are being abused by this, too.)
These are the things that, for decades, "no one wanted to say." Until, in a rush starting in 2016, they did. They're the policies about which "everyone looked the other way." Until, in a rush, they turned their head and said, "No."
Although moment-to-moment there will be rhetoric and court-fights and worse, the certainty of this political sea-change (oh, so very long in coming ...) now cannot now be denied.
This will have very dramatic impact to IT, where I fully expect the "non-immigrant visa" concept to be toppled within months if not weeks. People might not be turned out of the country until their visas end, but they won't be replaced and your next-new-hires won't be arriving after all.
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 01-29-2017 at 10:34 AM.
sundialsvcs
not only do we have slaves in the U.S. but they are used to
privatize the draft by a multi national company who's products
are little more than scrap metal the one and only way they
can sell there crap products is to keep from having a draft
that would be so unpopular it would bring the defiance
budget in to question
it's like this the emigration laws are aimed at employers more
than emigrants but the employers pay to get the crooks elected
who would stop paying for rigged elections if they
had to pay minim wage
as long as money talks things will remain the same
the real money from the slave trade comes from selling drugs
the war on drugs is a tool to lower the computation not to
protect the people
As you may recall, I witnessed seventeen young Indian men – all dressed identically but dressed to the nines – walk out of one apartment in a tony suburb of Nashville, Tennessee and get onto a small bus. (They didn't have a car ...) Disbelieving, I peeked inside the one-bedroom apartment and saw ... sleeping bags and very little furniture.
(I'm quite sure that the unit was "officially" rented to some very nondescript white guy ...)
So, no matter what today's capitalists say about this version of "the peculiar institution," it is the same institution. The 13th Amendment forbids "involuntary servitude" and "peonage," and yet, here it is. Right there in Nashville.
I also happen to know that the Tennessee department which processes unemployment benefits(!) does not hire Tennesseeans in IT. So far as I could see, not a single one. In fact, the cubicles don't have names on them: they have pictures.
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 01-29-2017 at 07:48 PM.
The WikiPedia article points out several alternative meanings of the word "peon," particularly including a colloquial use of the word in South America that is comparatively benign. However, I'm using the "American English" usage:
Quote:
American English: in a historical and legal sense, peon generally referred to someone working in an unfree labor system (known as peonage). The word often implied debt bondage or indentured servitude.
See also: Black Codes (United States) (and you should read that article ...)
For instance, the seventeen earnest young men: (a) did not have a car or other means of transportation; (b) were being held in living conditions that, although clean (nearly spotless) were in strict violation of the laws of the United States; (c) could never work for any other employer (a restriction further guaranteed by the non-immigrant visa's "sponsorship" requirement); and otherwise were held in involuntary servitude, which is forbidden by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.
No matter if it's "forbidden" or not, it has always been there. US Presidents talk about "guest workers." Tech moguls talk about "the best and the brightest." There once was a company called the New York Labor Company who provided slaves workers known only by number. (In the early 20th century.) And so on.
21st Century high-tech companies use labor practices that were outlawed in the 19th Century.
Manufacturers build factories "anywhere else but here," and import (sic ...) their products duty-free.
Change is in the wind, ladies and gentlemen, and it's happening now.
Silicon Valley must be aware that their argument sounds as nonsensical as it is: that "if we don't keep importing 'the best and the brightest' from <<positively any other country but the US>> those people will form companies in their countries and start competing with us and they will beat us!"
As I said, "21st Century companies are following 19th Century labor policies that were outlawed in that Century!"
Silicon Valley must be aware that their argument sounds as nonsensical as it is: that "if we don't keep importing 'the best and the brightest' from <<positively any other country but the US>> those people will form companies in their countries and start competing with us and they will beat us!"
As I said, "21st Century companies are following 19th Century labor policies that were outlawed in that Century!"
The only thing I want to add to that, is the reason why so many are imported rather than hired here - is because quite frankly the education in the states is a joke. No emphasis on science and math - and everything seems rather watered down - thats not to say there are not ANY bright stars in the US - but the overall lack of priority on education and even outright views of anti-intellectualism in the US is what pretty much hinders the US. Thats why brains are imported for the most part, which leaves to exploitative conditions and dare I say possibly even a security risk perhaps.
I'd have to question the quality of training outside the US. Many doctors are from countries that kind of make me wonder how they could get a quality education there and somehow manage to get into the use to practice.
I'll have to wonder why we don't offer free education to those who excel in their studies? Don't we really want the best and brightest? Isn't that in the countries interest?
I received a "full scholarship" which paid for my 4-year undergraduate degree (out of state) for about $13,000.00.
This year, the stated price of that diploma on the (public!) University's own web site might be $425,000.00.
Quite clearly, "financial nonsense." (I assure you that the professors aren't getting that money.)
But ... things get silly ... and you put up with it for some time because you're supposed to, until ... you stop. Until you refuse.
Well you know, the university needs a new lacrosse field, football field, trophy room.......
This is also my gripe about higher education in the US. Financially it is out of reach for some people even if they have the credentials - and sadly a scholarship is not enough. I am not going to pull a Bernie Sanders and say 'muh free college' - its not practical - professors need to be paid, universities do need money - but it needs to be allocated better - and I think sports should be something that is outright booted out of universities. You go to a university to LEARN - not play a sport - or at least they should setup 'a sport school' or something - and leave the traditional book learning to universities, but thats just me.
I feel this is relevant - and if you find this disturbing, well good because you should find it extremely disturbing - and yes the US definitely apart of this list:
I am not going to pull a Bernie Sanders and say 'muh free college' - its not practical - professors need to be paid, universities do need money - but it needs to be allocated better - and I think sports should be something that is outright booted out of universities. You go to a university to LEARN - not play a sport - or at least they should setup 'a sport school' or something - and leave the traditional book learning to universities, but thats just me.
Actually, when I was going to college in the early 1980's, college was "damn near free," if you went to a college in your State. This was still in the time of the thinking created by the "GI Bill" in the 1940's and onward.
A country did invest in its kids (and adults) by creating opportunities for higher education.
Today, I perceive a determined effort to stopAmerican kids from going to American colleges, specifically so that the "slave traders" (and I will call them that to their faces ... substitute "indentured servant" or "involuntary servitude" if it feels better to you) can win their argument.
If you want to see what is 'quietly' being done all around you (in high tech), it isn't hard to spot. For instance, Randstad is one of the biggest "brokers" out there, and they have a massive building just north of Atlanta, Georgia. This building is surrounded by various "long-term stay" hotels ... I say, surrounded. Now, stop by there some evening and drive around the parking lot. There are lights on in nearly every room, but the parking lot is strangely more-or-less deserted. Every night. And, what are several such hotels doing right there, within walking(!) distance of Randstad? Drag out your adding-machine tape and start thinking. I'll wait.
Ding! You got it. This building is filled by people who don't have cars. They are bound by the terms of their indenture visa "sponsorship" requirements to work for exactly one employer: Randstad. Do they likely see any money from their pay? Probably not: "they owe their souls to the comp'ny store." Does anyone in power have any objection to this? No more than the 19th century Southern planters objected to their labor pool (before or after the Civil War), and no more than Northern industrialists objected to their own "necessary" version of peonage.
"21st Century work," with "19th Century labor practices" that were outlawed by the 13th Amendment. And displacing millions of citizens who can't find work at all and who've simply stopped trying. To quote Bruce Hornsby: "That's just the way it is. Some things just never change." "Ahh, but don't you believe it!"
Fully expect YAEO = Yet Another Executive Order which will finally ask the question that is much "too inconvenient" to ask. A thing that was outlawed 150 years ago by a textual modification to the Constitution itself, but that is still right here among us.
As far as IT is concerned, the nature of jobs these peons have has changed. It is mostly call centre work, in some cases a programming pool to maintain running software for a company (these companies may have their own branches so no outsourcing), and a few writing and testing new packages for a company. Examples of the last two that I know about in my own town are Fidelity and PayPal. (Isn't Peter Thiel - the supremacist proprietor of PayPal- on Trump's advisory panel?).
Yeh Randstadt is one of the biggest brokers down there. Incidentally, they are a Dutch company and part of their profits are ploughed back to their COO (country of origin).
On the subject of college, it is well worth noting that colleges (including "public" ones) very much run with a for-profit motivation.
Programs such as Pell Grants were specifically created to help lower-income kids go to college, since (at that time ...) the USA wanted a college-educated work force. Well, it didn't take entrepreneurs long to put on their mortarboard-hats. They rented a floor of an office building, hired part-time instructors from God knows where, called it a "University," and started collecting that Federal do-re-mi. In some cases they "accredited" themselves, knowing that Uncle Sugar wasn't actually watching.
There are also scammers in the programming field who set up "Boot Camps" that promise to put you through some weeks of abusive conditions that are supposed to remind you somehow of the Marines, after which they will "help you get" that [i]"six-[/]figure (of course) job" that your $20,000.00 is supposed to prepare you for. (They pay their instructors minimum wage. An out-of-work American programmer will take it.)
There is no actual reason for a college degree to cost half-a-million dollars (as it now does in some American public Universities!), except for the profit of demanding (and getting) so much money, and the profit of making student loans that ... even though you won't be able to pay them back ... are guaranteed by FDIC plus the interest that the banks would have ostensibly earned.
(Non-) Education ... Health (Non-) Care ... the list goes on and on: the corrupting influence of money.
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